Dubai: Do you remember being read stories when you were a child? Perhaps your parents or siblings propped you up on their lap to read a story, or read you a bedtime story to help you get to sleep.
This is the way to create keen readers, according to renowned children's author Dame Jacqueline Wilson.
"You can create very keen readers by reading aloud to children when they are very young, even babies, if you prop them up on your lap then they can look at the pictures," Dame Jaqueline told Gulf News via telephone from England.
"If you read picture books to children, they come to like stories, then they're keen to learn themselves," she said. Dame Jacqueline has sold millions of children's books, covering diverse topics, and in 2002 she was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for services to literacy in schools.
Some of her best known works include Double Act, Girls in Love, Vicky Angel and The Story of Tracey Beaker, which was serialised for television.
For Dame Jacqueline, family reading aloud sessions are still fun, "even when a child can read for themselves.
"You can share the joy of a story — when children first learn to read they plod their way through each sentence, but they might be ready to listen to a more complex story," she said.
Book festival
Children's literature is again a feature of the 2010 Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature (EAIFL), at which Dame Jacqueline will be speaking. She is joined by other children's authors, such as Tony Ross, Ian Whybrow, Garth Nix, Darren Shah and Julia Johnson.
Isobel Abulhoul, director, EAIFL, agreed with Dame Jacqueline on reading to youngsters.
"It doesn't matter how young you start. I used to read to my three-week-old baby, just because it was something that I enjoyed. As they got older we would battle about what we were going to read at bedtime," she joked, "I used to hide their favourite books on the top shelves so I could read my favourite books," she told Gulf News.
Reading, Abulhoul continued, has to be part of every child's day, every day. "They could not, and would not, go to sleep without a story," she said of her own reading habits with her children.
"Parents need to read children's books, and they need to choose one that they [children] like. Then, they need to read on a regular basis. It's no good saying, ‘Well, I'm going to read when I've got five minutes.'"
Children's book topics have changed greatly since Dame Jacqueline was a child herself, as back then "children's books were bland — they [children] did as their parents told them, it was a different world entirely".
However, when she was in her 20s, times had moved on, and she found that more serious topics could be introduced into children's literature.
Challenging themes
Dame Jacqueline's books tackle challenging themes, including adoption, divorce and mental illness. This, she says, is her focus as "children have a place in the world as well as adults.
"Modern children watch things on television and I think they're ready to read about life as it really is. Children very much enjoy reading about contemporary life and don't find it too disturbing," she said, adding that obviously the topics are handled sensitively, so as not to be too graphic for the younger reader.
Also, her stories always have a happy ending, in order to reassure children.
Dame Jacqueline, however, once wrote a note to herself in her teenage diary, that she would never write children's books, even though she always knew she wanted to be a writer.
She felt that you couldn't express yourself enough or "show what life is really like for children".
It's not the readers that Dame Jacqueline has in mind during a first draft, as she doesn't "set out to write something that I feel will please my readers... it has to be something I'm interested in, that's important to my heart." The first draft of a book, she continued, is really written for herself, where she's not aware of her readers, whereas after the first draft rewriting she "proceed[s] a bit more cautiously" paying attention to whether "a particular instant is too upsetting for children".
With a devoted fan club of more than 100,000 members, the prolific author receives a huge amount of feedback from child readers, through fan letters and email discussions.
Children also discuss her work at book signings.
"It's a huge ego boost," she said.
Profile: Taking children on flights of fancy
Dame Jacqueline Wilson was born in Bath, England in 1945, but her books are popular all over the world.
One of her most successful creations has been the famous Tracey Beaker, who first appeared in 1991 in The Story of Tracey Beaker.
This was also the first of her books to be illustrated by Nick Sharratt.
Since then Dame Wilson has been on countless awards shortlists and has gone on to win many of them. The Illustrated Mum won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the 1999 Children's Book of the Year at the British Book Awards, was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Children's Book Award and went on to win the 2002 Blue Peter People's Choice Award.
Double Act won the prestigious Smarties Medal and the Children's Book Award as well as being highly commended for the Carnegie Medal.
According to a recent Mori poll, Dame Wilson was voted by children in the UK as their favourite author. She has sold millions of books. In the UK alone sales stand at over 25 million.
In 2002, she was awarded the OBE for services to literacy in schools and from 2005 to 2007 she was the Children's Laureate.
In 2008 she became Dame Jacqueline Wilson. Her latest book Hetty Feather was published in October 2009
— Source: www.Eaifl.com
Festival of literature
- WHAT: The 2010 Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature (EAIFL) being held under the patronage of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority.
- WHEN: March 10-13, 2010.
- WHERE: InterContinental Hotel, Dubai Festival City.
- HOW: Tickets available via www.eaifl.com. Some children's activities are free.
- EXTRAS: Events for a special Education Day will be held on March 11 at the Dubai Cultural and Scientific Association, Al Mamzar. The festival will also include a free children's zone with interactive reading sessions.
Did you read to your children when they were infants? What kind of books did you read aloud? Has it made a difference?
